> Armed with this knowledge, the researchers for the first time successfully coaxed human pluripotent stem cells (a kind of cell that can create any cell in the human body) to become functional hindbrain motor neurons in the laboratory.
...
> The research also has implications for investigating treatments for SMA, ALS and other conditions affecting the brain stem. Until now, studying these diseases has been nearly impossible because scientists cannot obtain brain stem tissue from living patients. The ability to grow these neurons in a dish opens new possibilities for understanding what goes wrong.
But no, nothing to see here, not worth our time for this overblown article apparently ...
> The research also has implications for investigating treatments for SMA, ALS and other conditions affecting the brain stem.
Are you working on research for any of these? If no, then this article is just "empty calories" in your information diet. If yes, I'd assume (hope, even) that you wouldn't be hearing from this through some institutional PR piece.
Because no layman should ever keep up yo date on research?
By that logic, most of HN is "empty calories". Then why are you here?